“No,” agreed Whyland. “We’re not likely to be lucky to find an actual witness. All right, Mr. Ludgrove, thank you. Now, young man, do you know if your father possessed a hypodermic syringe?”

Ted Copperdock, thus addressed, shook his head. “I don’t think so, Inspector,” he replied. “But I shouldn’t know one if I saw it. There’s a cupboard over there by the washing stand where he kept a lot of bottles of stuff.”

Whyland strode over to the cupboard and opened it. It contained about a dozen bottles of various sizes, each half full of some patent medicine or other. But of a hypodermic syringe, or even any caustic potash, there was no trace.